The Most Difficult Fact for White Americans to Understand . . . by KTK

Somebody at the Department of Labor just re-posted this original report from 1965. It is heart-wrenching in how closely its high-level observations (aside from particulars of detail that have changed in 40 years) remain true, and to what degree the “savage and brutal effort” of so many parts of society to resist addressing its subject still continue. But it is astounding, and heart-lifting, in two ways also.

First, that the government once spoke this frankly and unequivocally about race. (It was not rare, either: LBJ’s “Great Society” speeches, Eleanor Roosevelt’s outspoken criticism of racism and segregation, Bobby Kennedy’s many speeches on race, and in particular his unflinching, yet soaring, speech on the death of Martin Luther King, set the tenor of their times.) These are not smirking code-words or hypocritical prevarications – this is frank acknowledgment that “American has never been America” to so many of its citizens, and that the government has a duty to tackle that problem. It is a call for a political program, but it is not political manipulation for partisan gain. It is mature and forthright discussion of a difficult subject, motivated by a responsible willingness to accept the challenges it poses. How we drifted from that into the present-day childishness, evasion, and outright lies, most particularly of the Republican party, is an infuriating puzzle, but it’s good to be reminded that that does not have to be the case when Democrats are in charge.

Second: that the Democrats are in charge. It is in no possible way an accident that this found its way onto the DoL Web site under the Obama team. I think it was posted both to underscore the obvious and ongoing need for truth and courage on the issue of race – to call us to stop being “a nation of cowards”, as Eric Holder so rightly and bracingly said – and to signal that Obama intends to see that the conversation he, in large part, started will continue. Jon Stewart said rightly that one of the most remarkable things about Obama’s magnificent speech on race was that he “talked to Americans about race as if they were adults”. Here the DoL shows that he’s not the first Democrat to have done so (Clinton did well, too, though not as aggressively). But Obama’s team is telling us to get ready for an extended conversation – started and led by adults, and with awareness of the past that got us to where we are today – on a subject most have avoided or given short shrift. They’re not afraid to remind us how bad things were, and I’m sure they’ll be drawing the necessary parallels as well. This will not be easy, and for many it may not be comfortable, but the time to put away childish things is upon us.

I like this, and I want to see where it leads.

The Negro Family: The Case For National Action

The United States is approaching a new crisis in race relations.

In the decade that began with the school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court, and ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the demand of Negro Americans for full recognition of their civil rights was finally met.

The effort, no matter how savage and brutal, of some State and local governments to thwart the exercise of those rights is doomed. The nation will not put up with it — least of all the Negroes. The present moment will pass. In the meantime, a new period is beginning.

In this new period the expectations of the Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights. Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made.

There are two reasons. First, the racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation. Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people. The harsh fact is that as a group, at the present time, in terms of ability to win out in the competitions of American life, they are not equal to most of those groups with which they will be competing. Individually, Negro Americans reach the highest peaks of achievement. But collectively, in the spectrum of American ethnic and religious and regional groups, where some get plenty and some get none, where some send eighty percent of their children to college and others pull them out of school at the 8th grade, Negroes are among the weakest.

The most difficult fact for white Americans to understand is that in these terms the circumstances of the Negro American community in recent years has probably been getting worse, not better. . . .

The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure.